


Homesick

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Humor, Ars Goetia, Demons, Gen, Magic, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 05:13:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16319795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Asophel never imagined that he'd end up lockedoutsideof Hell.





	Homesick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alunsina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunsina/gifts).



> I love this prompt so much, it has such great potential as well as providing myself with a very specific challenge to try and meet.

_The gates of Hell are locked from the inside._

It was a saying that Asophel, Legionnaire in the Fourth Cohort of Balam’s Thirty-First Legion, had found to be painfully true after finding himself on the wrong side of those gates.

It had been a routine venture into the world of mortals. The Legion he was a part of was selected to accompany the King as he performed the usual services for the mortal that had summoned him. The Legion had been there purely as a formality, as the mortal that had summoned Balam was a king himself. The deal was for the usual services, the mortal king wanted answers to simple questions of the sort that would only concern mortals, but he ended up being quite particular about some of the details, including location and timeframe, given in terms comprehensible to mortals. It wasn’t long before Balam and the king left the parade grounds and enter the palace to discuss matters in comfort.

While Balam and the king quibbled about finding a suitable system to measure time by, Asophel had found himself drawn into a debate on scholarly matters with one of the mortal king’s advisors. The man had something about him, some touch that suggested that he was not of purely mortal lineage, or at least that was what Asophel told himself after the fact.

The subject matter of their debate was widespread, focusing on mathematics as applied to the divine, the influence of the sun and moon on the potency of rituals, and the elemental properties of that which could not be measured. All in all quite fascinating, enough so that when the advisor offered him a silver and crystal scepter so that he could step outside of the area defined by the summoning, Asophel sought the permission of the Legatus legionis to leave the summoning area.

It was granted and he followed the advisor to the royal library so that a particular point on the draw of the moon on the land as well as the sea could be properly referenced. In the end it turned out that Asophel had been right, though he had been mistaken about the strength of the pull, and when he returned to the parade ground he found that Balam and the Thirty-First Legion were gone.

The binding ritual had been dismantled and Asophel was stuck in a most unusual situation.

He couldn’t banish himself back to Hell and, being a minor demon at best, none of the human king’s sorcerers were willing to waste the necessary resources to perform the ritual. Not to mention, it was quite dangerous to work magic against an unnamed demon and Asophel had no desire to let a mortal know his name and risk being bound. A minor demon, such as himself, couldn’t hope to dictate the terms of his contract as demon of rank could.

It left him in a difficult position, one that the scholar who had drawn him into at least had the decency to be apologetic for. The scholar saw to it that Asophel was given full access to the royal library so that he might research his own banishment, as though that were possible.

The problem was he be both within and without the binding runes that he would need to break to return to Hell.

At least not in the realm of mortals. Back in Hell bilocation was a simple trick, but the realm of mortals was governed by rules that even ranking demons were obliged to follow, lest they risk the ire of even greater powers.

The last thing that Asophel wanted to do was to bring divine wrath down upon Balam for his mistake, leaving him well and thoroughly stuck.

So he divided his time the library and the castle kitchens, for at least there the air was properly hot and the smell of smoke and cooking meat could remind him of home. In fact, when night fell the darkness was almost properly oppressive.


End file.
